Word: chernobyls
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...Chernobyl calamity occurred, ironically, in the course of a safety test. According to the report, workers were trying to determine how long the reactor's turbine generators would continue to operate as a result of inertia in the event of an unforeseen reactor shutdown. To prevent the automatic safety systems from interfering with the experiment, the technicians disconnected them, opening the way for a chain of fatal mishaps. The consequence was an explosion and fire that for more than a week spewed streams of radioactive material into the atmosphere above the Soviet Union and across Eastern and Western Europe...
...Though Chernobyl was a civilian atomic-power facility, Soviet officials used the accident report as a platform for their campaign against the American nuclear-defense program. After first ignoring and then minimizing the mishap, Moscow has tried to establish a link between Chernobyl and atomic weapons. Said the report: "The accident at the Chernobyl nuclear-power plant has again demonstrated the danger of uncontrolled nuclear power and highlighted the destructive consequences to which its military use or damage to peaceful nuclear facilities during military operations could lead." And Petrosyants told the press conference, "The explosion of the smallest nuclear warhead...
Indeed, the Soviet account of Chernobyl revealed that the power-plant explosion was a case of incompetence on an astounding scale. According to the report, the group of unnamed technicians who were responsible for the disaster committed six serious blunders. If any one of these mistakes had not been made, Soviet officials claimed, the accident would not have occurred...
...Europe reaction to the report was strong, if only because some Europeans are still suffering from the aftereffects of Chernobyl. Sweden was one of the countries most seriously affected, and last week Prime Minister Ingvar Carlsson, who once accepted nuclear power, gave a bitter speech in which he charged that "Chernobyl has spread radioactive iodine and cesium over our fields, forests, marshes and lakes." The accident has cost Sweden at least $144 million in ruined food and threatens the livelihood of 15,000 Lapp nomads who live in central Sweden. The reindeer they raise and the berries and fish they...
...investigation of the accident is completed, but the cleanup effort at Chernobyl continues. In recent weeks it has been slowed to a crawl by a series of technical troubles. The biggest problem is to encase the reactor, which is still emitting dangerous radioactive particles, in a concrete tomb. The Soviets have run short of cement and have had to install a ventilation system to prevent heat buildup, which might cause new fires and explosions. The Communist Party daily Pravda has criticized the slowness of the effort, pointing out that three other nuclear reactors located on the site cannot resume operation...